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God
A god or deity is a being with divine and/or supernatural powers. They are often personifications of a concept or force of nature, and can be tied into a world's creation myth. According to Juniper Smith, there is no evidence that any gods exist on Earth. Aerb, however, has five gods. These gods are considerably less puissant than some of the more powerful examples found in Earth's mythologies. Amaryllis, when commenting on their moral character, claims that it is lacking - a claim supported by the arc of Aerb's basic history“It’s not clear whether it’s dying or not,” said Amaryllis. “The overall trend is downward. Optimists feel that the final graph will be sigmoid, with a long period of stability before the First Empire, a period of instability, and then a second long period of stability.” We moved on to other things after that, but it left me thinking holy shit is this world grimdark. There was no heaven, only nine thousand hells, and Aerb itself was becoming a shadow of itself. It was obvious to me that this was a reflection of my own mind; since Arthur had died, I hadn’t really been a believer in bright and happy futures, and even before then I had always made my worlds a little dim so that the heroes could shine all the brighter. That was the thought that gave me hope. If I had designed this world, then maybe I was a hero in it, one of the people whose purpose was to blaze with light and banish the darkness. . The book Fingers of the Celestial Hand discusses Aerb's gods as forces within the world. “...If you’re omnipotent, how fucking shitty do you have to be at planning for any of your plans to involve killing millions of children every year?” :—'Juniper' on theodicy, Chapter 81: "Musings on the Elder God" Gods of Earth God In the specific part of Earth where Juniper grew up, people are raised to believe that there's a singular god who created the world and wrote the laws of physics. This "God" is supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Juniper gets mad at him sometimes. Athena The Greek goddess 's name is the root of the word "Athenaeum". Cthulhu Cthulhu is a "Lovecraftian" elder being, one that presumably plays a prominent role in Call of Cthulhu - a game system used by Juniper Smith for his Tentacles of the Third Reich campaign. Gods of Aerb Invreizen Invreizen is Aerb's god of Sea and Ice. Invreizen is capable of changing their body instantly, much as Juniper Smith does when putting skill points into PHY. Aarde Aarde is a god. The blood magic spell "Aarde's Touch" is named after them. |26115879|9|Making Magic}} Skaduwee Skaduwee is a god. Karakter Karakter is a god. Truuk Truuk is a god. Fictional gods Bethel Aerb's legends told of a home, the first god, that sheltered the first humans for the eldritch storms that crossed the world in its distant past. "God of Might" Juniper Smith once mentioned a "God of Might" in a made-up story about Moxit and Kerland. "God of Scurrily" In the Council of Arches' Dungeons & Dragons games, the race of scurrilies was cursed by their god for rebelling against him. Like the rest of Alphalon's gods, the "God of Scurrily" lived high on Oros Olympos. "God of the Smell of Fresh-Baked Bread" A minor god played by Tiff in Juniper's Small Gods campaign. "God of Stories Without Endings" A minor god played by Arthur Blum in Juniper's Small Gods campaign. Notes *The names of Aerb's gods are derived from words in non-English languages: **"Invriezen" means "freezing" in Dutch. **"Aarde" means "earth" in Dutch. **"Skaduwee" means "shadow" in Afrikaans (with the word for "shadow" in Dutch being "Schaduw"). **"Karakter" means "character" in Dutch. **"Truuk" means "trick" in Dutch.